


Not to Feel So Insecure

by Electra_XT



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Crossdressing, Happy Ending, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 11:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19852483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Electra_XT/pseuds/Electra_XT
Summary: Diego holds his breath. From this angle, if he looks for it, he can trace the faint outline of a red V under Klaus’s white button-down. It’s different than the usual adrenaline he feels after he takes someone down: instead of the rush of power, he’s hyper-attuned to Klaus’s body, as if he’s waiting for another attack. Klaus isn’t even looking at him. Diego’s stuck, staring at Klaus’s chest, his arms, his neck, his face.—Four times Diego saw Klaus all done up, and one time he didn't.





	Not to Feel So Insecure

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "MANiCURE" by Lady Gaga.
> 
> Thank you to TheseusInTheMaze for the cheerleading and beta!

2001

Klaus’s scream echoes through the entire house. 

“What was that?” Luther says, looking up from his mission report. He’s stricken, but Diego is already out of his chair.

“Oh my God,” Allison calls from the railing. “Klaus?”

There’s a groan from the atrium, and a hitching sob. Diego’s feet are carrying him down the stairs faster than he can think, Allison and Luther are running behind him, and he leaps the last couple steps to find Klaus on his knees at the foot of the staircase, cradling his face.

“What happened to you?” Five says, materializing instantly beside Klaus.

“I broke my face,” Klaus says.

“There’s no such thing as breaking your face,” Five says. “It’s probably your jaw. Mom!”

“Klaus?” Grace says, and Diego turns to see her walking towards them, as impeccable as always. He’s embarrassingly relieved to see her. Klaus’s eyes are wide and glazed with pain.

“It hurts,” Klaus says, turning to Grace. A tear slips out of his eye and runs down his cheek. “I fell and I cracked something and I feel like my teeth feel like they don’t fit together, everything hurts—”

“What happened?” Grace says, resting a hand on his back.

“I was wearing your shoes,” Klaus says. His voice is thick. “I was on the stairs and I— I slipped.”

Diego looks over. Grace’s heels are spilled on the floor behind Klaus and the image of Klaus wearing them, tottering down the stairs like an exotic animal, flashes into Diego’s mind. It’s indelible. Klaus in heels feels wrong, somehow, against the rules, but also sickeningly right in a way that Diego can’t place.

“Why were you wearing her shoes?” Diego says.

Klaus gives him a look just as Grace moves forward to cup his jaw in her hands. Between her fingers, Klaus’s eyes look wet and irate.

“Why do you wanna know?” he asks.

“Children,” Reginald’s voice echoes from the stairs. “For what reason are you congregating so inappropriately? You know that mission report composition lasts until precisely six thirty.”

“Klaus got hurt,” Luther says immediately.

There’s a silence. Diego should probably be looking up at Dad, but Klaus is still holding the eye contact.

“Number Four,” Reginald says. “What did you do to yourself?”

“It was an accident,” Klaus says as Grace lets go of his face. He winces. “Mom?”

“I believe your jaw is broken, dear,” Grace says, taking his hand. “I can fix you up downstairs.”

“Am I gonna survive?” Klaus says.

“Of course you will, darling. After a few weeks wired shut, you’ll be good as new.”

Reginald adjusts his monocle as Klaus yelps— _“few weeks?”_ — and Grace pulls him close to her as she consoles him all the way down the hallway. Diego dares to finally look up at Dad, but his face is impenetrable.

“Your bodies are your weapons,” Reginald said. “See to it that you refrain from damaging them.”

And then he turns and he’s gone. There’s nothing to do about it. Luther awkwardly tries to give rest of them a sort of “chin-up” gesture, but Diego shoots him a venomous look. Allison has a hand over her mouth. Usually Klaus is the one who cheers her up when she’s upset, but Klaus is out of sight now, trapped behind the thick infirmary doors. Diego’d probably faint if he knew exactly what Grace was doing to him in there.

“He’ll be okay,” Five says in an overly confident voice, and then he teleports away.

Allison buries her face in her hands. Diego knows he should be at her side comforting her, but Luther’s big arm is already around her shoulders and Diego’s frozen.

Luther looks up. “You can go, Diego. We’ve got everything under control.”

Diego hates the idea of following Number One’s orders right now, but what else is he supposed to do? He gives Allison and Luther one last lingering look, and then he turns his back.

The last thing Diego sees are the red satin high heels, scuffed at the edges, lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

—

2002

“Hey,” Allison says. “That’s my nightgown.”

It’s Sunday, merciful Sunday, when Grace picks up their uniforms from their bedroom floors and deposits them in the laundry and they can wear normal teenager clothes. Diego looks around the table. Everyone’s casual, dressed to be invisible, except Allison’s wearing some kind of nice blouse, and Klaus is… yeah, that’s a nightgown.

“You weren’t using it,” Klaus says. “Fair game.”

“I wasn’t using it because a, it’s breakfast, and b, it’s a nightgown,” Allison says.

“You snooze, you lose, sister,” Klaus says. He makes a show of feeling the fabric between his thumb and forefingers. “This has a little something-something unlike literally anything else in your wardrobe.”

“What’s the difference between a nightgown and a dress?” Luther says, digging into his first plate of eggs.

“I am _so_ glad you asked,” Klaus says. “The answer is intention! Anything can be a nightgown if you try hard enough.”

“Untrue,” Allison says, pointing her fork at him. “If you wore an evening gown to bed, it would not be a nightgown.”

“Sure,” Klaus says. He tips his chair back onto its rear legs. “It has to be unstructured. Comfortable. Kind of like a slip?”

Luther has the face of someone who was about to ask what a slip was, but then thought better of it. Diego snorts.

“Why don’t you steal from Vanya for a change?” Allison says. Vanya looks up from her quiet end of the table.

“Nothing against Vanya, but you’re the second most fashionable person in this house and I need more clothes,” Klaus says.

“Who’s the first most fashionable?” Diego says despite himself. Ben shoots him a glance— _you really sure you want to throw down this gauntlet?_

To which Diego does not respond.

“Me,” Klaus says, clapping his hands together. “Then Allison. Then you, then Ben and Five are tied, then Vanya, and Luther is last.”

“Stop ranking us,” Luther says, looking up. “That’s not fair.”

“You’re just mad because you’re last,” Diego and Klaus say in unison. 

They look at each other, and Diego feels somewhat betrayed. He doesn’t want his words dragged along behind Klaus’s jingling train wreck of ideas. Klaus’s face lights up with glee and Diego very pointedly looks away.

“I’m not mad because I’m last,” Luther says, pulling his second plate of eggs towards him.

“Luther,” Allison says gently, “he kind of has a point. You wore socks with sandals last week.”

“It was genuinely upsetting,” Klaus says.

“What did I do to deserve third place in your ranking?” Diego says.

“The knife belt has panache,” Klaus says. His face lights up. “Hey, would you ever let me—”

“Not in a million years,” Diego says, hand on the knife at his hip. He needs it there, not that he’d ever actually throw it at Klaus, but it’s the last thing standing between Klaus and Diego’s dignity.

“Let’s get this straight,” Allison says, leaning back in her chair. “You can borrow my clothes, when you ask me and I say yes. But only sometimes. And you have to declare me the most fashionable.”

“Come on,” Klaus says. “I’m the one who came up with the rankings.”

“If you really were the best dressed, you wouldn’t have to steal from the second best,” Allison says.

“Borrow,” Klaus says. “From my equal, okay?”

“Equal’s not enough,” Allison says. “Say I’m the best.”

“Allison.”

“Say it.”

“Fine, you’re the best dressed person in this house,” Klaus says, sliding off his chair. “And I’m number two.” He holds up two fingers and waggles them at Diego. “Twins!”

“No,” Diego says.

“This is dumb,” Ben says. “Ninety percent of the time we’re in our uniforms.”

“Eighty-six percent,” Five says. Everyone looks at him. “Six out of seven days. Am I the only one here who bothered to learn math?”

“I can do math,” Vanya says.

“Exactly, because you’re back here learning fractions while we’re doing missions,” Five says. “You’re going to be the only one of us who’s actually equipped to handle real adult situations with reasoning instead of senseless violence. In fact, I’m starting to get a little jealous.”

“I can handle any adult situation,” Ben says, and then Luther is holding up a hand to explain how super-strength is a life skill and Diego finds himself leaning forward to tell him how actually, throwing knives requires an intuitive knowledge of physics and Five is leaning back with a smirk and Vanya is ever-so-slightly smiling and for one glorious moment, Diego doesn’t have to think about Klaus and his dress and his eyeliner and his shit-eating grin.

—

2005

Diego stomps up the stairs two at a time and heads down the hallway. He can practically feel Dad’s eyes on him, frowning through the monocle, the admonishment from a minute ago still ringing in his ears. It’s not even his fault that Klaus didn’t show up for training. _Still, Number Two,_ Reginald had chided, _a member of the team never leaves anyone behind._

Diego’s not so sure about that. He stops in front of Klaus’s door, debates knocking, and then yanks it open with no prelude.

“What are you doing up here?” he says.

“Hey, what the fuck, learn to knock!” comes Klaus’s voice from the far corner of the room. Diego plants himself and folds his arms over his chest. Klaus comes skittering into view, tugging down his uniform shirt. “What do you want?”

“We were supposed to be downstairs for hand-to-hand ten minutes ago,” Diego says. 

“Oh,” Klaus says.

“Yeah, oh,” Diego says. “Come on.”

“Can we maybe take a rain check?” Klaus says, scratching at his shoulder.

“Everyone else is down there,” Diego says. “Dad’s already pissed and I don’t have time for your bullshit.”

“You don’t even need me to train,” Klaus says, adjusting the shoulder of his shirt again. “Hey, maybe I’ll sit this one out and you can beat up Vanya. Excellent, sounds great, go get her and go wild on her, okay?”

“What’s up with you?” Diego says. “You hurt your shoulder?”

“No,” Klaus says quickly.

“Then _come on,”_ Diego says.

“Can you give me a minute?” Klaus says. “I need to change into my, my activewear, I’m not ready.”

“This isn’t a fashion show,” Diego says. “We’re late. I’m not leaving until you come with me. And if you don’t come with me, I’ll make you.”

“Diego,” Klaus pleads.

Something’s off about the way Klaus is standing. Diego tries not to look too hard, but Klaus’s shirt is pulled strangely across his chest. Klaus shifts his weight, then grabs his blazer from where it sags over the back of his desk chair and starts buttoning it up hurriedly.

“Your call,” Diego says. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to beat you to the floor like there’s nothing going on.”

“You always beat me to the floor anyway,” Klaus says, finishing up the last few buttons with quick fingers. “Not like this is going to make a difference. Whatever. _Que la vie,_ right?”

“What?” Diego says. Klaus’s eyes have a worrying glint in them. Even as Diego squints at him to see if he’s high again, he reaches into his shirt and adjusts something on his shoulder.

 _“Que la vie,”_ Klaus says. “That’s the phrase, right? Like, ‘so it goes?’”

It’s not. Diego doesn’t even know what he was trying to say, but it’s not. Klaus is perched right at the edge of his patience, dangling his feet into the fraying edges of Diego’s nerves, and there’s something going on that he can’t put a finger on and he grits his teeth. Klaus smiles innocently, tugging down his blazer.

“You don’t make any sense,” Diego says. “Downstairs, now.”

“What does _que la vie_ mean?” Klaus asks Ben, hopping down the last three stairs to land next to him on the atrium floor. Diego follows him, hand on his knife belt.

Ben turns away from where he was talking to Allison. “What?”

“You know that phrase _que la vie?”_ Klaus says.

“No.”

“You don’t?” Klaus says. “I thought you knew French.”

“Eh,” Ben says, making a so-so gesture. “I learned as much as was in Jane Eyre. What’s the phrase again?”

 _“Que la vie,”_ Klaus says. “Hmm. Maybe it’s Spanish?”

Diego exchanges an exasperated look with Allison, who shakes her head. Luther looks between them like he wants to get in on the joke, but Diego looks away in time to avoid catching his eye. He really feels like beating the shit out of someone right now. Doesn’t even have to be Klaus. Luther is right there, perfectly punchable.

“Oh, I think I get it,” Ben says. “It’s both. You’re mixing up _c’est la vie,_ which is French, and _que sera sera,_ which is Spanish.”

“So I was right on both counts,” Klaus says, shedding his blazer and tossing it to the floor behind him. He scratches at his ribcage.

“No, you were double wrong,” Ben says.

“What does it mean?”

“I literally could not tell you,” Ben says. “You’re the one who made it up.”

“Let’s get going,” Diego says, tapping his fingers on his thigh. He’s antsy. Klaus is standing there in some kind of weird way and Dad is stalking towards them and Diego tackles Klaus, grabbing him and putting him in an arm bar, pushing down his shoulder. Klaus’s shirt slides to reveal a red lace strap.

Diego’s brain short-circuits. The lace digs into the soft, pale skin of Klaus’s shoulder, leaving an angry indentation. The image flashes into his mind of woman’s bra, tight against against Klaus’s skinny ribs, a nipple peeking out behind red lace.

“What the hell?” he says.

“I told you you should have let me change,” Klaus says at the floor.

“Not my fault you forgot we had training,” Diego says, tightening his hold on Klaus’s arm. “Where did you even get that? Did you take that from Allison?”

“Break,” Klaus says, and Diego lets him out of the hold. “Of course not.”

“Don’t tell me it was Vanya,” Diego says. “That’s so fucked up, man.”

“Hey, no,” Klaus says. “I’m way too flat-chested for that, Diego, Jesus. Shit, Dad’s coming, put me in another one.”

Diego blinks, but Reginald is turning away from Luther, so he grabs the front of Klaus’s shirt and kicks his leg out from under him. Klaus lands on the floor at Reginald’s feet.

Diego holds his breath. From this angle, if he looks for it, he can trace the faint outline of a red V under Klaus’s white button-down. It’s different than the usual adrenaline he feels after he takes someone down: instead of the rush of power, he’s hyper-attuned to Klaus’s body, as if he’s waiting for another attack. Klaus isn’t even looking at him. Diego’s stuck, staring at Klaus’s chest, his arms, his neck, his face.

“Higher on the throat and lower on the ankle, Number Two,” Reginald says. “Again.”

Diego hauls Klaus up by the hand from the ground to standing. He places his hand on Klaus’s collarbone, against the soft skin of his throat, and he kicks Klaus’s ankle back hard.

Klaus goes down instantly this time, slamming back against the ground. He lets his head fall back, and looks up at Diego with the tiniest smile.

If Klaus is getting off on this— Diego gives him a death stare. Klaus lets one eyelid drift closed in the world’s most annoying wink.

“Very good, Number Two,” Reginald says. “Your turn now, Number Four.”

“Why do I have to do martial arts?” Klaus says from the floor. “I mean, my powers aren’t about fighting, so I don’t see why I have to be here. No offense.”

“A valid point,” Reginald says. He adjusts his monocle. “You may spend the rest of the session down in individual training, if you wish.” 

“No, sir,” Klaus says. “This is— this is fine.”

If Diego weren’t looking so carefully, he might have missed the way Klaus tensed up when Reginald mentioned individual training. Klaus is still smiling faintly, but it feels stretched tight over an expression of panic.

“Very well,” Reginald says, moving away from them. “Keep practicing, then.”

Sometimes Diego is glad that their father is completely naive. If he’d seen the perceptible change, the fear in Klaus’s eyes, he would have rounded on him and dug his claws even deeper. Klaus would have crumbled.

“Come on, man,” Diego says. “Let’s get you up.”

He extends his hand. It takes a moment for Klaus to grab it and stand up, and he looks unsteady. Diego needs to do something. Change the subject. Anything to get that horrible expression off Klaus’s face, to release his rigid joints. It’s like the time Grace malfunctioned and her face got stuck in a perpetual transition, not quite smiling, not quite concerned. He wants to ask, _what’s individual training for you?_ He wants to ask, _what did Dad do to you?_ He wants to ask, _are you okay?_

Instead, he takes a deep breath.

“So if you didn’t steal it from Allison or Vanya,” he says, “where the hell did you get it?”

Klaus’s face lights up and he relaxes back into his goddamn annoying regular posture. His eyes are still slightly manic, but that’s not really anything out of the ordinary. “You’re so curious, Diego. Why? Do you want one?”

“Uh, no,” Diego says. He’s so regretting this. “Not even girls like wearing those.” Allison had treated all the boys to a lengthy and informative rant about periods and bras and other “trials of womanhood” after Ben had asked her if twenty tampons was enough to pack for her for a weekend mission. Vanya had been there too, but she’d sort of looked like she wanted to disappear.

“Yeah, no shit,” Klaus says. “It feels horrible. And it’s not even the kind with wires.”

“Then why did you put it on?”

“I was caught up in the moment,” Klaus says. 

Diego is about to open his mouth to ask what the hell kind of moment could have led to Klaus putting on a bra, but Klaus tackles him, pushing him to the floor and kneeling over him. Instinctively, Diego tucks his chin into his chest to avoid splitting his head open on the floor, and he finds himself staring straight down Klaus’s shirt, red lace against skin. Diego lets the back of his head hit the floor and stares up at the ceiling.

“Jesus,” he says. “Warn a guy.”

“Your assailant will never warn you when he is about to strike, Number Two,” Klaus murmurs in his ear. “Prepare yourself at all times.”

“Fuck off,” Diego says. It creeps him out to hear Klaus call him by his number. “It’s training, I was standing still, you were gonna give me the signal—”

“Unless this is about what I’m wearing,” Klaus says. He’s still hovering over Diego. “In which case I can absolutely _warn_ you that I’m wearing the matching underwear.”

Diego shudders. He cannot fucking think about that under any circumstances. He realizes with a sick jolt that if he pictures Klaus going up to his room after training and stripping in front of the mirror, admiring his skinny body dressed up in red— if he pictures Klaus’s cock tucked delicately inside, balls nestled against the lace— Klaus reaching down to cup himself, turning to the side to assess his bulge in profile, jut out his ribs to give the appearance that he fills out that bra— Diego’s going to get hard, achingly desperate, and even if he turns his tail and runs he’s still going to end up rubbing one out in the shower, face red, thinking about his brother. In lingerie. Pinning him to the ground, with such a teasing smile on his face, lighting up as he shifts his ass down Diego’s torso inch by fucking inch.

Diego closes his eyes.

“Can you let me up?” he says.

—

2006

The light is on in the bathroom.

Diego stops. The hallway is dark upstairs at two in the morning, and sleep never comes easily to the Hargreeves siblings, but everyone usually keeps to themselves. If Diego wakes up in the middle of the night and listens, he can usually hear the soft thumping of Luther working out in his bedroom, or the sound of Vanya going over her pieces by herself, picking out a melody by plucking the strings. And Klaus’s screams might actually, literally be able to raise the dead. If it gets too bad, Diego usually pads downstairs to the kitchen to sit at the table and stare unseeingly at the scratched wood, and sometimes he wakes up Grace enough that she gives him a _hmm_ of concern and starts heating up warm milk on the stove.

It’s pretty common for someone to be holed up in the bathroom, but the door is always closed, the light only the outline of a rectangle. But the door is open now.

Klaus is leaning over the sink, applying something to his lips with a little wand. He’s as far as possible from a sleepy teenager in Academy pajamas: clingy shirt, tight pants, shoes with thick high heels, and more makeup than Diego’s ever seen him wear. If his daily look is smudgy and obnoxious, this is full glam. Not drag, but Klaus’s natural features turned up to eleven: long lashes, shimmer high on his cheekbones, the pout of his lips nearly dripping with something glossy. Klaus looks _sexy,_ and the thought hits Diego like a punch in the throat.

“What are you doing?” Diego says from the doorway.

Klaus’s hand pauses. He sinks the little stick back into the tube and then he meets Diego’s eyes in the mirror.

“I’m going out,” he says.

“Where?” Diego says. His voice comes out too harsh, like he’s police officer grilling a truant.

“Mmm,” Klaus says, pressing his lips together. He looks in the mirror. “Mwah. Mwah. Hey, does this look blended to you?”

Klaus’s lips look soft and wet, shining and glossy in the low light of the bathroom lamp. 

“You going to meet someone?” Diego says, folding his arms over his chest.

“I don’t really have a _someone,”_ Klaus says. “That’s not how I roll, you know? Besides, who am I to deprive anyone of this?”

He twirls. Diego is momentarily mesmerized by his bony ass in tight leather, the cutouts that creep all the way to his waistband, and then Klaus stumbles and there’s no mirror anymore, just Klaus right in front of Diego with wet lips and leather pants. 

“Can you even wear underwear in those?” Diego says, looking down at Klaus’s legs.

“Diego!” Klaus says. “That is such a personal question.”

“Forget it,” Diego says. “Forget I asked.”

“The thing is, I don’t know,” Klaus says. “I sort of can’t remember if I’m wearing underwear or not. Do you think I should check?”

Diego stares at him.

“I’m going to check,” Klaus says. He slips a finger into his waistband and his jaw drops. “Wow. I don’t think I am. That’s embarrassing.”

“Why do you do this?” Diego says. He gestures at the makeup, the slutty pants, the gauzy top that looks like it’s dripping off Klaus’s skinny torso. He clears his throat. “You look like a— a tease. Going out there dressed like this. Face covered in that glittery shit. You’re gonna get attention you don’t want.”

“God, Diego, what’s your deal?” Klaus says. “Quit it with the big strong man act, I don’t need you to save me from the legions of predators or whatever. I like it, okay?”

“I didn’t say you look bad,” Diego says, and his voice comes out wrecked. He fidgets with the fraying sleeve of his pajamas. “I said that you gotta stop teasing me.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Klaus says. “You’re standing there and your eyes are fucking huge and I can’t tell if you hate me or if you’re trying to hide a really huge boner—”

“You could have asked,” Diego says, stepping forward. Klaus backs against the wall. His eyes are glassy.

“Can I ask now?” he says.

Diego kicks the bathroom door shut. Klaus lets out a little noise of surprise as Diego advances on him.

“If you want someone to pay attention to you,” Diego says, letting his hands settle on Klaus’s sharp hips, “you don’t have to leave the house.”

“Oh, wow,” Klaus says. He reaches out tentatively and Diego swats his hand away. He doesn’t need Klaus pawing at him right now, treating him like some kind of john. He needs to feel him shivering under his hands, heartbeat fluttering, he needs to know what it’s like. Klaus recoils and then his eyes light up.

“Let’s go out,” he says.

“I thought we were staying in,” Diego says. Heat builds in his gut as he anticipates— they’re really doing this, he’s following the lines set out years ago by Klaus’s dumb skirts and ridiculous bra during training. Anxiety trips behind the lust but he doesn’t care.

“Let’s go together,” Klaus says, grabbing Diego’s wrist. “I can take you to all the places I know. Ha! You think I’m a tease with you, Diego, wait ’til you see me for real. You’d get to stand there as all the guys try to feel me up, trying to—” Klaus grabs his own crotch and jerks upward crudely. “Get a piece of this tight little ass that they’re so used to panting after, huh? Unless they start eyeing you up, too. You’re kinda hot. I mean, you’re a man now, Diego, you’re starting to really get some hair on your chest.” Klaus squeezes Diego’s bicep, surprisingly tightly. “Look at this, huh? I bet a million of them would line up down the block for the opportunity to lick your ass. They want you to fuck them, but it’s still me who they want to have their way with, little old me freaking it up on the dance floor like the slutty, horny bitch I am. But then I’d look over to you and you’d give me the sign and I’d pull you onto the dance floor and you’d show all of them that you’re the only man I’m going home with, aren’t you, right? And then when we get home you’ll drag me up to my pathetic little childhood bedroom and ram me into the mattress until I’m begging. That— that’s what you want, isn’t it? Right, Diego?”

“Right,” Diego echoes. Klaus’s eyes look glassy and there’s a sheen of sweat distorting the foundation at his hairline. “You okay?”

“What?” Klaus says. He gives a little dazed laugh. “I’m amazing, Diego. Feels like it’s my birthday. My favorite brother propositioning me. Why do you ask?”

The pupils in Klaus’s eyes are enormous, nearly eclipsing the iris.

“What did you take?” Diego says. He drops his hands from Klaus’s hips.

“Did I what?” Klaus says.

“I said what did you take,” Diego says.

“It doesn’t matter,” Klaus says. “Hey, hey, calm down, okay? It’s just to take the edge off, make the…” He gestures vaguely in the air. “You should try it, Diego, maybe you’d finally shit that stick out of your ass.”

Revulsion slices through Diego. He grabs the front of Klaus’s shirt and drags him in to inspect him. He’s a fucking idiot for not having realized it before. More often than not these days, Klaus stumbles down to training or recreational hour or even lunch with a look in his eye like he’s misplaced his mind slightly to the left of his body, a tremor in his hands, a weird laugh. Of course Klaus would fuck himself up before going out to get fucked. Diego should’ve caught it. Dumb two a.m. brain. Lust brain. Klaus brain.

“Hey, weren’t we going out?” Klaus says. He slips his narrow fingers into the waistband of Diego’s pajamas. “Ooh, no, you wanted to stay in.” His fingers linger on Diego’s stomach. “Fine by me. My room or yours?”

“Get your hands off me,” Diego says, letting go of his shirt.. “Don’t even think about touching me until you get sober.”

Klaus stumbles back. His shirt is rumpled now and he tugs it straight, hitches up his pants. “You have to give me another chance, Diego, c’mon. You know I can make you forget about it.”

A tear wobbles in the corner of Klaus’s eye and then it drops, streaking mascara down Klaus’s cheek. Diego steps in close.

“Aww,” Diego says. “Did I mess up your makeup?”

Klaus is trembling. Diego doesn’t even need to be up close to see the way he’s shuddering himself to pieces under Diego’s gaze, sweaty and high and shiny with iridescent powder and sweat. More tears brim in his eyes and he blinks hard like a little kid, trying not to cry, trapped in a pathetic junkie body.

Diego steps back in. Klaus tilts his face up like he can hardly believe it, like he thinks Diego’s going to kiss him like this. Diego uses his thumb to smear the perfectly edged eyeliner into a wet, sparkly smudge. 

“Did now,” he says.

He turns and kicks open the door without looking back. And then he leaves.

—

2015

Diego is sick of crushing pills. He’s already found too many tucked in the top drawer of the dresser, slipped between socks and underwear and inexplicably a box of instant grow-your-own foam dinosaurs. He’d ground them under the heel of his boot until the seams of the floorboards were stained white with powder. 

And then he’d looked up at the rest of the room, piled high with junk, and realized that he’d have to comb through every damn bit of it.

Luther had given him a call at the gym. Said in that hesitant Number One way of his that Klaus had just been released from rehab, that Luther was his emergency contact, that Dad was sending Luther on a mission off-world tomorrow for an indefinite amount of time and could Diego please, please head to the mansion to meet Klaus there? And maybe he could also, uh, look through Klaus’s room to see if anything was still stashed in there?

Diego had said okay. Al had given him the day off after the last match— because he’d won, not because he’d lost— and if he didn’t occupy himself somehow, he was gonna go crazy, but this is… Diego picks up a faded pack of birthday balloons. Two hours in Klaus’s room and he’s already seen way too much. Diego sighs, cracks his neck, cracks his knuckles, and goes back to the pile.

Stuffed animals. Lube and condoms. A protein bar that expired two years ago, and finally a bag of weed, which Diego brings to the bathroom and flushes down the toilet again and again until the toilet starts making a burbling noise. Curtains. Mountains of clothes. Something that looks suspiciously like a dog collar tightened to fit a human neck. A faded notebook, which Diego opens only to find, in Klaus’s loopy teenage cursive, ‘Dear Diary— never mind.’” A business card for a social worker with a little blue flower on it— _24/7 support for survivors of sexual assault._ An Altoids tin filled with white powder, which is either actual cocaine or Altoids dust. In any case, Diego dumps it despite the toilet’s protests. 

When he gets to the vanity, he’s pretty sure he’s exhausted the room’s potential for surprise. One last delicate little drawer, and then he can call it a day.

He yanks it open, and he stops.

A few tubes of lipstick roll towards him, knocking into a bottle of nail polish so separated that it’s impossible to tell what color it was originally. An ancient tin of eyeshadow lies open-faced, flecks of dust doubled on the face of its mirror. Diego slams the drawer shut like he’s walked in on Klaus naked. Then he opens it again. The makeup lies there, facing him, and he picks up a thin, shiny tube.

“Hey,” a voice says from behind him. “That’s my stuff.”

Diego forces himself to stay calm. He uncaps the tube, half-expecting to see the same sticky wand of lip gloss from all those years ago, but instead it’s a little black felt-tipped marker.

“Hello, Klaus,” he says. “Nice of you not to die.”

“Yeah, well, I did my best,” Klaus says. He takes up the entire doorway in his giant coat, leaning against the frame. He folds his arms over his chest and a white plastic hospital bracelet slips down over his wrist. His feet are bare and his toenails are painted. For a single moment, Diego’s caught in his thrall and he can’t shake himself away.

Klaus trips over to where Diego’s sitting. “What are you doing here? Get your paws off my makeup, man, that’s my… that’s my property.”

“You don’t have much of that these days, do you?” Diego says. 

“Yeah,” Klaus says, twisting his fingers together. His eyes dart around the room. 

“Don’t even bother looking,” Diego says.

“Looking for what?” Klaus says quickly.

“You had a lot of hiding places, didn’t you?” Diego says. He doesn’t get up from his chair. “I had to comb through every inch of this place. Why’d you store that shit in a stuffed unicorn?”

“No one’d find it there,” Klaus says. 

“I did.”

Klaus sniffs. “Yeah, well, I see you found my makeup, too. You know, I find it interesting that of all of the crazy shit in this room, that’s what you chose to pick up.” 

“What even is this?” Diego says, examining the felt tip of the pen.

“Eyeliner,” Klaus says.

“You stick this in your _eyeball?”_

“Close enough,” Klaus says. He sniffs hard. “I look good in it, too.”

“You ever poke yourself?”

“Oh, all the time,” Klaus says. He shudders. “You know, in prison, they use Sharpie. That— that is a real bitch to get in your eye.”

Diego’s heart clenches. He’s seen kids go to prison before. In the police academy, he’d had to stand and watch as a couple of officers put a skinny junkie guy in cuffs and lead him away, and he’d watched it without moving. Then he’d gone back to the gym and given the sandbags hell until his knuckles started to bleed.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Diego,” Klaus says, fingering the plastic hospital bracelet on his wrist.

“Yeah, I do,” Diego says. He’s still looking at the eyeliner in his fingers. “You get yourself into too much trouble, you know that?”

“Look, I really appreciate that you came here and destroyed my stash and everything, but you don’t have to stay here, okay?” Klaus says. He sniffs again, and Diego looks up at him. “You hate that I’m like this. Don’t lie about it.”

“I don’t like watching you destroy yourself,” Diego says.

“God, Diego,” Klaus says, “I _know.”_

“And I’m not going to let you,” Diego says, stepping towards him. “This time, you’re not gonna have to be on your own.”

Klaus stares at him, and he sways on his feet.

“I mean it,” Diego says. They’re close now. He catches Klaus’s arm. “Hey. Hey, easy, easy.”

Klaus is trembling under him, practically vibrating, and up close Diego can see how sallow his skin is, how thin the layer is between the outside world and Klaus’s bruised insides. He can see the week-old makeup on Klaus’s eyes, the crumbles of mascara caught in his long eyelashes.

“Stop looking at me,” Klaus says.

“Klaus,” Diego says. Klaus screws his eyes up tight. “Klaus. I’m looking at you. I want to look at you.”

“You want to look at me?” Klaus repeats, speaking with his eyes closed.

Diego swallows. He wasn’t good with this when he was seventeen and he’s not good with it now. 

“I have been looking at you since we were kids,” he says. “I have been looking at you since you broke your jaw running down the stairs in Grace’s heels, and you got up and went to the hospital, and the heels were still there on the ground. I’ve been checking you out since you started wearing makeup at the dinner table and stealing Allison’s clothes and making us squirm. And it’s not because it makes me hot. I mean, it does. But I’ve been looking at you because you need someone to look at you. I’ve been thinking, Klaus, a lot, I’ve been rehearsing this since I heard you got time, because the moment you got locked up, I started missing you like crazy, and I’m never gonna be able to use one of those eyeliner things, but I’m here, okay? I’m here, and I g-got you, and I— I—”

Klaus practically falls into his arms, and Diego hugs him tight. Klaus is real and solid, fragile and bony, and he buries his face in Diego’s shoulder.

“I’m clean,” Klaus says into Diego’s neck. “I don’t know if you remember, but you said back then that I couldn’t— I couldn’t touch you if I wasn’t, but I am now.”

“You can touch me,” Diego says. He’s thought about this for months. He can’t think about anything else, alone in his bed, not able to sleep because he’s besieged by thoughts of long limbs and huge eyes and painted lips and weird little regrets that have haunted him since they were shadows on his bedroom door.

Klaus’s eyes are wide. He reaches up and places his hand on Diego’s cheek like a little kid.

“Can I,” Diego says. Klaus’s hand is clammy. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah,” Klaus says with a shaky laugh. “You know you can have whatever you want from me, you don’t need to ask.”

“But I’m always gonna,” Diego says, and he leans in to close the distance between them, fitting their mouths together. Klaus tenses for an instant when their lips touch and then he flings his arms around Diego like an honest-to-God rom-com heroine. 

It’s weird. The tension that’s been squeezing them apart for however many years breaks at the press of Klaus’s lips, chapped but unnaturally soft. Diego lets lips open and Klaus clutches at his arms, long fingernails digging into leather, and it’s like they can’t even get any closer together. Klaus breaks the kiss and presses his face into Diego’s shoulder, trembling. Diego rubs his back, staring at the wall behind them, all Klaus’s scrawled prophecies edging up to the ceiling. _THE DAY WE DIE._

“Let’s get in the car,” Diego says. He claps a hand on his shoulder. “You gotta eat, man.”

“And then what?” Klaus says, latching onto Diego’s arm as Diego walks them towards the door.

“We go get food,” Diego says.

“And then what?” Klaus says.

“We go watch the sunset over the river,” Diego says.

“And then what?”

Diego pulls Klaus in and kisses him. Klaus melts under his touch, and Diego pulls back, tracing a thumb over his cheekbone.

“We’ll get there,” he says. “Don’t worry so much.”


End file.
